Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1887-05-06
THE OLIVE.
Further Information Regarding this VAL
uable and Profitable Fruit.

The culture of the olive is branch of
the fruit-growing industry which is yet in
its infancy on this coast, but we believe
that in few years it will become one of
the most important, as we'll as profitable,
fields of horticultural enterprise with us,
as it is at present with many countries in
the south of Europe, whose chief revenue
is derived from the export of olive oil and
picked olives.
The olive tree is distinguished for its
great longevity and vitality. A tree in the
garden OF the Vatican, at Rome, is said to
be thousand years old During the Greek
revolution the Turks cut down the olive
trees and burned over the stumps, with the
result that three years thereafter the shoots
from the SCARED stumps commenced to
give crop.
1t has generally been supposed that the
olive rather prefers rocky and somewhat
barren soil. In Europe it certainly flour
ishes in places where a cactus would hardly
grow, but Major UT says tits great mis-
take to presume that the olive can be grown
on barren soil without fertilizers Use
manure literally, and use il to an extreme
degree, to supplant the lack of irrigation.
The olive is voracions feeder, and will
appropriate enough plant food during the
months of winter moisture to carry the
tree through the dry summer season, pro-
vided there is an abundant food supply
ready for storage and assimilation. The
Mission is generally recommended for oil
and the European olive for picking. The
latter, also, is preferable for propagation, as
the small limbs will serve for cuttings, and
will root where Mission cutting will fail.
European olives ripen two months in adj
vance of the Mission olives. Trees should
be planted in an orchard, and cuttings in
nursery. Plant no less than thirty-six feet
| apart, or you will regret it in after years
remember in planting that the olive root IS
more sensitive to exposure than the orange.
The olive is easily budded or grated, as
| there is no trouble in obtaining varieties.
| Small, one-year-o trees can be bought for
| twenty-five cents or less each. The roots
of trees should always be puddled before
shipping, and great care taken against ex-
| posture The business of propagating the
| trees should be left to the nurserymen, eX-
! cept in a case where party cannot afford to
| buy trees.
When it comes to profits, olive growers
can show figures which should satisfy the
most exacting Major UT has an olive or
! chard of twenty-five bearing trees, planted
in orchard seven years, to include 1856; the
! product from ten of them last year was $50
! gallons of olives He sold the surplus crop
at forty cents per gallon, casks furnished, OF
So per tree Fifty gallons of average crop
to the tree at twelve years from the plant
ing of the orchard would be low estimate,
and this amount would make six and a
| quarter gallons of oil. Ellwood Cooper
gets $40 gallon for his oil. Increased
production will lower the wholesale price
to 81 per gallon, or at the lowest, S25 per
tree. equal to 5000 per acre. Allow one
half for expenses and interest on invest
ment, and you have the neat sum of $3.50
per acre as net profit. Mr.. Loop has been
offered so cents gallon for all the picked
olives he can prepare for market.
| OF the great future which awaits the
culture of the olive on this coast there can
be no doubt. We are still in the expert
mental stage. In fact, olive culture stands
about where the raisin industry did ten
years ago-Sdn joaquin VALLEY Resources.